A few years ago, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation had a drama based on the life of King Henry VIII. King Henry proclaimed himself to be the head of the Church of England because people were afraid of him. They went along with him, except for one man named Thomas Moore. Thomas Moore was a high-ranking official, a friend, really, of Henry VIII. And he refused to agree. He said, I don't believe Henry VIII is the head of the Church. So Henry VIII had him arrested and thrown in prison and eventually sentenced to death. His friends came and visited him off and on and asked him to change his mind. Henry means this. He's going to have you killed.
And he stood fast. And finally, in this production, one of Thomas Moore's friends comes to see him in prison right before he's about to die. And he says, look, just say that Henry VIII is the head of the Church. Thomas Moore said, no, I'm not going to say that because I don't believe that. I don't like what his friend says, but listen to what his friend says.
This is really interesting. His friend says, Thomas, you don't have to believe it. You just have to say it.
That's the American Church right there. You and I don't have to believe it. We just got to play the game and we got to say it. You don't actually have to believe that that six-foot-five, 250-pound man with a beard who uses female pronouns is actually a woman. You don't have to believe it. You just got to say it.
You don't have to believe that biological men should be allowed to compete against women in sports. You don't have to believe it. You just have to say it. You don't have to believe that that unborn organism with eyes, nose, fingers, heartbeat, and brainwaves is simply a blob of tissue mass. You don't have to believe it.
You just have to say it. We learned this lesson from the media recently. You don't have to believe that the president is perfectly fine with all of his mental faculties intact. You just have to say that you believe that. That's the world we're living in right now. You don't have to believe it, but you got to play the game.
You got to say it. And every now and then, you'll come across a few mavericks who say, I don't play your silly little games. Homie don't play the game. Whatever the young people say, I don't play the game.
I refuse to go along with it. And today you're going to meet four of those men, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I'm going to give the background. Nebuchadnezzar, a global tyrant, destroyed the southern kingdom of Judah in about 586 B.C. But before that, he had come in in previous waves and incrementally had begun to take over the southern kingdom. And in one of those waves, we think this wave took place in about 605 B.C., he takes some of the nobles, some of the upper class from Judah, and he brings them to Babylon to train them to be leaders in the Babylonian government.
And that's where our story takes place. Daniel 1, look at verse 3. The king, that's Nebuchadnezzar, ordered Ashpenaz, the chief of staff, to bring to the palace some of the young men of Judah's royal family and other noble families who had been brought to Babylon as captives. Select only strong, healthy, and good-looking young men, he said. Make sure that they are well-versed in every branch of learning, are gifted with knowledge and good judgment, and are suited to serve in the royal palace. Train these young men in the language and the literature of Babylon. The king assigned them a daily ration of food and wine from his own kitchens.
They were to be trained for three years, and then they would enter royal service. Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were four of the young men chosen all from the tribe of Judah. The chief of staff renamed them with Babylonian names. Daniel was called Belteshazzar. Hananiah was called Shadrach. Mishael was called Meshach.
Azariah was called Abednego. But Daniel was determined not to defile himself by eating the food and wine given to them by the king. He asked the chief of staff for permission not to eat these unacceptable foods. Now God had given the chief of staff both respect and affection for Daniel, but he responded, look, I'm afraid of my Lord the king, who has ordered that you eat this food and wine. If you become pale and thin compared to the other youths your age, I am afraid the king will have me beheaded.
Daniel spoke with the attendant who had been appointed by the chief of staff to look after Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Look, please test us for ten days on a diet of vegetables and water, Daniel said. At the end of the ten days, see how we look compared to the other young men who are eating the kings food.
Then make your decision in the light of what you see. The attendant agreed to Daniel's suggestion and tested them for ten days. At the end of the ten days, Daniel and his three friends looked healthier and better nourished than the young men who had been eating the food assigned by the king. So after that the attendant fed them only vegetables instead of the food and wine provided for the others. Look at verse 21.
Daniel remained in the royal service until the first year of the reign of King Cyrus. It's kind of interesting. Look at this Ashpenaz. Do you see that in verse three? Nebuchadnezzar's chief of staff. Skeptics are always trying to undercut the book of Daniel because Daniel is so precise with his prophecies that they said this can't be a legitimate book. And for years one of the things they used to poke holes in the book of Daniel was Ashpenaz.
The guy didn't even exist. Prominent guy like that, the chief of staff of Nebuchadnezzar surely would have found some type of inscription to him. But within the last few decades we have found Ashpenaz written on monuments in ancient Babylon which are now in the Berlin museum. And one of those monuments says, quote, Ashpenaz, master of the eunuchs in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. The Bible again was right, the skeptics were wrong. Now, let me just say this. The Bible doesn't say that Daniel was a eunuch.
Never says that. So we don't know if he was a eunuch or not. There is some evidence that he was. It was very common in those days if you're going to have young men attending to the king and the king has a harem of wives that he doesn't want messed with, it was very common for them to make these young men eunuchs.
And in fact, Ashpenaz, who's the head of these guys, is called in these inscriptions the head of the eunuchs. So we don't know, but it's quite possible Daniel was a eunuch. So when you see Daniel in heaven one day, don't complain about your job here on earth, okay? Hey, I hated my job.
I had to work weekends, I had to work overtime, my boss was mean. Daniel's like, yeah, I got castrated. I'm right, you win. And so, but again, we don't know if Daniel was a eunuch or not, but we do understand that that was common in those times. Now, they're going to make these young men leaders in Babylon. But before they do that, they've got to brainwash them. Get rid of their Jewish worldview and give them a pagan Babylonian worldview. And so how do they do that? Well, they try to do that in three ways. Three ways they try to brainwash Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
Number one is through changing their names. Do you see that in verse seven? See, all four of these boys have names that honor God.
It's part of their godly heritage. Daniel means, you can judge me if you want, but God is my judge. Hananiah means Yahweh is a gracious God. Mishael means, who's like my God? Azariah means Yahweh is my helper.
They say, no, no, we got to brainwash these guys. We're going to change their names. And so Daniel is given the name Belteshazzar, which means favored or protected by the demonic god, Baal. Shadrach means under the command of Aku, the moon god. Meshach means, who is as Aku, the moon god.
Abednego means servant of the god Nebo. Do you see what happens? We got to change these guys' identity and we'll do it by changing their names. That's the first way they try to brainwash them. Second way they try to brainwash them is they put them through government school.
Do you see that in verse four? They put them through a pagan government school, pagan education. Let me just say this, parents. Y'all do realize they're your kids, not the government's kids, right?
Okay, because I think parents are starting to lose sight of that here in America. It's not the government's kids, they're your kids. I was reading a book recently by Paul Johnson called The Intellectuals and he said the French philosopher Rousseau actually taught that kids in a given society didn't belong to the parents, they really belonged to the government. It was the government's job to educate them and instill in them a world view. Lenin took that same concept and with his whole Marxist ideology, the concept was the kids belong to the government. I'm afraid some parents have fallen into that mess. They're not the government's kids, they're your kids. So number one, they try to brainwash them by changing their names.
Number two, they put them through government school and then number three, they challenge their commitment to God. Look, we don't want you to eat this kosher Jewish food anymore. From now on, you're going to eat pagan Babylonian food and this is important for two reasons. Number one, look, food was more than just what they ate. Their diet is what set them apart as followers of God, of Yahweh, of the covenant people of Yahweh. Their food was more than just what you put in your mouth. It was a symbol of their walk with God.
Second reason this is important is that in Babylonian pagan banquets, there's all kinds of wickedness and immorality involved, so it's not just food, it's all that goes along with the food. So do you see what they're trying to do? They're trying to erase their identity as the covenant people of God.
Now look, they went along with the name change, we'll give you that. They went along with government schooling, we'll go along with that, but they drew their line at the commitment to God. Verse eight, look at this, but Daniel was determined not to defile himself. Daniel at this time, I want you to listen to me, he's not a 30-year-old man, he's a 15-year-old boy.
A 15-year-old boy, don't tell me God can't move through young people, or all young people are reprobates, or young people can't do anything for God. This 15-year-old boy looks at the, listen, the representative of the most powerful man in the world and he says, as a follower of the true and living God, there's only so far I can go, I'm not doing this. Lest you think that that was just a nice thing that Daniel said and everybody kind of live and let live, let me tell you the kind of man he's dealing with, because this is going to get back to Nebuchadnezzar himself.
Let me tell you what kind of man this 15-year-old boy is standing up against. Nebuchadnezzar had a conflict with a Jewish king named King Zedekiah, you ever heard him before? Zedekiah ran afoul of Nebuchadnezzar, the same man that now Daniel, a 15-year-old boy, is conflicting with. Zedekiah had a conflict with Nebuchadnezzar. Do you know what Nebuchadnezzar did? He got Zedekiah's wife, children, and all of his best friends, and he lined them up in front of Zedekiah.
He said, Zedekiah, watch this, and he slaughtered every one of his friends, his children, and his wife right in front of Zedekiah, and then he took a heated sword and burned out the eyeballs of Zedekiah so that the last thing he would ever see was the slaughter of the people most dear to him. That's the person Daniel is going up against. So this is a big deal where Daniel says, I'm not going to eat the king's food. You can change my name, you can put me through your little school, but when it comes to my walk with God, which is symbolized by the diet I'm eating, I can't do it. It takes a lot of boldness and a lot of courage to stand up against a man like that.
And what happened? As a result, verse nine, look at this, God gave the attendant, do you see this in verse 10? A respect for Daniel. Listen, you stand for the Lord Jesus Christ, the world isn't always going to agree with you, but they might respect you a little bit. They're going to respect you a little bit more than having this linguine spine that sticks your finger up in the air to see which way the cultural winds are blowing before you make a decision.
The world may not always agree with you, but they're going to respect you if you stand for the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse nine, gave him a respect for Daniel. And then verse 10, now watch this, he says, all right, we're going to do a little experiment. I'm going to give you vegetables for 10 days. Now why vegetables?
Watch this. A Jewish kosher diet, there are some meats you can't eat, and it kind of gets confusing. Like when we go to Israel, if you go to a kosher, and we'll do this, if you go to a kosher restaurant, they will not give you a cheeseburger.
Why? Because part of the Jewish diet is you don't mix meat with dairy. Because there's a prohibition, I think it's a little bit, because you will not cook a cow in the milk of its mother. What if this milk happened to be the milk of this? And so we don't mix meat and dairy. There's some things they will do, some things they won't do.
It gets very confusing. But you can eat on a kosher diet, all the vegetables you want. So what Daniel is basically saying is, instead of confusing you with what I can't eat, what I can't eat, here's what we're going to do.
Let's just eat vegetable for 10 days. And as a result, you see this, it says the boys were stronger, and they were in better health. Now we stop and say this, as a carnivore, the Bible's not giving us a pattern for eating, okay?
He's not giving us a pattern to start the New Year's off with, he's not giving us a weight loss plan. God blessed these boys supernaturally. Because we do know this, particularly with young men who are developing, a vegetarian diet is not the best diet for you. Did you know that?
You need some protein, you need some healthy fats. I believe God stepped in, and God supernaturally honored the commitment of Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Daniel. And so don't read this, liberals, and say that God wants us to stop eating meat, or eat beyond beef, or whatever that stuff is. He's not saying that, okay?
You understand that. God honored the commitment of Daniel to say, I'm a man of God, and I can't do that. Beloved, I look at Daniel, this 15 year old boy, and he's teaching me, a 51 year old man, a whole lot about living for Jesus in this messed up, perverted culture.
I'm going to learn a lot from that young 15 year old boy right there. Would you all agree we are now living in an anti-Christian, anti-God, pagan, Babylonian culture? Would you agree with that? Stop at the Olympics for just a second. Now, for those of you who are listening on the radio, there's a delay. This will probably be on a few months from now, so forgive me, but my sermons are dated pretty quickly, because I talk about current event stuff all the time. I don't know if you kept up with this, but the opening ceremony of the Olympics entailed drag queens reenacting the Last Supper. The guy who did that has said now that it was a tribute to the Greek god Bacchus.
Looky here. No, it wasn't. It was trying to make fun of the Last Supper. That's what this was about. If you're going to do something blasphemous, at least have the courage to stand up and say, yeah, I spit in the face of God.
Don't backtrack, okay? Let's take the Last Supper stuff aside. Why should an opening ceremony have a bunch of drag queens? Did you know that there was a simulation of a threesome?
All kinds of pagan idolatry in that opening ceremony, it was a filthy thing. Parents, let me ask you something. When y'all saw the drag queens, did you keep watching, or do you say to your kids, kids, we're going to turn the channel? Because this is how we get desensitized. Well, it's only 30 seconds. That 30 seconds is desensitizing your kids, and 30 seconds over a long period of time makes them numb to the things of God.
Listen, that is an open, flagrant attack on Christianity. Now, Chad, are you going to watch the Olympics? I'm not telling you what to do. You do it. This is something you're going to have to ask the Holy Spirit for wisdom for you.
You do what you want to do. We're not watching the Olympics. Why are you not watching?
Look, all these athletes, they've worked hard, they've tried this, their dream, couldn't care less. All I care about is, does this thing honor the Lord Jesus Christ? And if it blasphemes the Lord Jesus, I'm not watching it.
You do whatever you want to do. But here's my point. My point is we are living in an increasingly, not neutral, I can deal with neutral. We're now living in an anti-Christian era. And so how do we handle this thing? How do we as followers of Jesus Christ stand in a messed up world? Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego tell us.
Number one, they say, look, be courteous. Look at verse eight. Daniel was determined not to defile himself by eating the food and wine given to them by the king. He asked the chief of staff for permission not to eat these unacceptable foods. Verse 12, he says, please test us for 10 days.
The Hebrew word, please, it's kind of a little particle. It's nah, it's courteous. It's, hey, ask you a quick favor.
Don't make us do this thing. Listen, there's now a tension here, and I'm not always good at this tension. There's a tension between being courteous and being bold and confident. And sometimes I go to this extreme. I rarely go to the other extreme, but sometimes I do.
We want to be bold and confident, but we also want to be courteous. And that's what these guys do. They didn't say, blank you, I'm going to get it. You can't do this to me.
I'm a Jew and I'm a Jew. They didn't do that. They said, we're asking you, don't make us do this because we're not doing this.
In fact, Peter says the same thing in 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 15. Look, always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you for the reason, for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect. Fellas, I know it's been a long day and I know we're trying to build camaraderie here in the office. Fellas, y'all can go to the strip club after work.
I can't go. Yeah, you're one of the guys. I'm one of the guys, but I also belong to the Lord Jesus and also have a wife at home and I can't do that.
Does that make sense? Now here's where it gets really tough. It gets tough and I'm struggling in this area. It gets tough to be courteous when we're now dealing with a government that seems to become more and more anti-God and anti-Jesus Christ.
That's where the struggle is for me. And there's a tension in the Bible. In the Bible, you see bold men and women of God standing up against the government and saying we're not going to do this. And you have Jesus calling Herod a fox.
Have you heard that? You have John the Baptist saying to Herod, you're committing adultery with your brother's wife. God's going to condemn you.
You have that. And then on the other hand, you have verses like this. Romans 13 one, everyone must submit to governing authorities. First Peter 2 17, fear God, honor the king. Acts 23 five, you will not speak evil of the ruler of your people. Do you see that tension of courage and courtesy?
And again, I'm the wrong person for you to come from for advice on that thing. I'm struggling in this area, but I want to be like Daniel where I am courteous, but I'm also courageous. Do you see that? All right, that's the first lesson he teaches us.
Be courteous. And then number two, Daniel teaches us, hey, be consistent. Look at verse 21. It says, Daniel remained in the royal service until the first year of the reign of King Cyrus.
Watch this. Daniel comes to Babylon as a teenager. He serves God there until after 80 years of age. And he lived through some people that were some horrendous leaders. He lived through Nebuchadnezzar. He lived through Belshazzar. He lived through Darius.
He lived through Cyrus. For about 70 years, Daniel stands firm and walks with God. Do you know there's only a few people in the Bible that we don't hear anything negative about? Obviously, Jesus. Joseph, we don't hear anything negative about him. Saul's son, Jonathan, we don't hear anything bad about him. And Daniel, we don't hear anything bad about him. He walks consistently with God.
Not for 10 years, 15 years, 20 years. For 70 years, he walks with God. Was he perfect?
He wasn't perfect, but we don't hear anything bad about him. There's a consistency to Daniel's walk. I read this Christian author years ago. Here's what he called Christianity.
I love this. He called Christianity a long obedience in the same direction. Isn't that great? Just its consistency. It's getting up in the morning, going in the Word of God, praying, walking with clean hands and a pure heart, coming home to your family, taking care of your family, getting up the next day, going to church on Sunday, serving the Lord Jesus. It's a long obedience in the same direction.
That's Daniel. Now, we're hearing of a lot of pastors and Christian leaders who are falling. I heard of another one this past week that I respect. He's fallen morally. And people always say this when a Christian leader falls, wow, look how far he fell. Yeah, but you don't know how low he was living.
I heard a psychologist who deals with pastors who have fallen morally. And here's what he said. This is years ago. He said this. He said, very rarely, if ever, does a man go from being a sold-out follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, walking with clean hands and a pure heart one day and a reprobate the next day. He said, what I found is they make little compromises along the way. I'll skip reading my Bible today.
I won't go to church this week or this month. I'll cut corners here and those little, small compromises along the way. This site isn't that bad. The women should dress better, but it's not that bad. Which leads to this site. It's a little bit hardcore.
To this site, which is really hardcore. It's the little compromises that we make along the way. And Daniel is one of these men who said, yeah, I'm courteous, but I'm also consistent. Not perfect, but I'm going to walk with clean hands and a pure heart. I'm going to follow God today. I'll let God take care of tomorrow, but each day, day by day, it's going to be a long obedience in the same direction.
Does that make sense? So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and Daniel teach us to be courteous, number one. They teach us to be consistent, number two. And number three, they teach us to be confident.
The confidence of Daniel and his three friends, it amazes me. And again, what amazes me more is these are teenage boys. These aren't pastors. These aren't theologians.
These aren't soldiers. Fifteen-year-old boys with this incredible confidence. Beloved, if you're going to follow the Lord Jesus Christ in this generation, you're going to need the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and you're going to need confidence. In fact, right now, if you were to ask me, what is the one trait the followers of Jesus Christ are going to need to survive in this pagan generation, it's this.
You've got to be bold and you've got to be confident. It's Daniel and his friends. It reminds me of a guy named Athanasius. You ever heard of Athanasius? Athanasius lived around the 300s AD, and the church had started to get away from the divinity of Jesus Christ. Maybe Jesus isn't totally God. A guy named Arius, winsome, popular, had taken the church in this direction. Athanasius said, no, no. He's God.
He's God in flesh, and I'm going to stand on that. His view was the most unpopular view in the church at that time. People get more and more aggravated at Athanasius.
One of his friends said, I'm going to do him a favor and I'm going to let him know how mad he's making everybody. They came up to Athanasius and said, Athanasius, we've got to give you a reality check. Athanasius, the whole world is against you. Do you know what Athanasius said?
Fine. I'm against the whole world. They actually gave him the nickname Athanasius Contramundum. Athanasius, the one who is against the whole world.
Wouldn't it be great to be given that name in this generation? Chad Harvey, the man who the whole world hates, and that's fine. I'm against the whole world, but I'm going to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't care what it costs me.
I don't care how many friendships I lose. It's Chad against the whole world. Listen to me. God plus one always equals the majority. The whole world may be against you.
God plus one equals the majority. How do we get that boldness? I mean, I look at this guy, Daniel. He's bold where I might have compromised. I want that kind of boldness, that confidence.
How do we get it? I'm about to give you, y'all ready for this? I've just told you, you're going to need boldness and confidence to stand in this generation.
You just heard me say that, right? I am about to give you the key to boldness and confidence. Are you ready?
Yeah, there's some ancillary keys, but I'm going to give you the main key right now. Are y'all ready for this? Are you ready for this? All right, calm down.
Since I can't hold you back, let me give it to you right now. Proverbs 14, 26 says this, in the fear of the Lord, there is strong confidence. Or here's how Jesus put it to his disciples. Hey, don't fear those who can kill your body and then after that, they can't do anything else.
Jesus just said that. Don't fear people. He says this in verse five, but I will show you whom you should fear. Fear him who, after he has killed, has the power to cast into hell.
Yes, I say to you, fear him who, after this, I say to you, fear him. When you get to this point in your life where you want to serve God more than people, you fear God more than people, you honor God more than people, the bigger God gets, the smaller people get. The bigger people get, the smaller God gets.
That's just it. The bigger God is in your mind, the smaller people are. The bigger people are, the smaller God is.
That's just the way it works. When you come to the point in your life where you say, I just don't care, I just want to serve God and honor God and fear God. One day I'm going to stand before God. I have to put up with you all for maybe 70, 76 years of my life. I'm going to be in the presence of God forever. He's the one I want to honor and serve. When you get to that point in your life, you have no more fear of people.
That's where confidence comes in. Look, years ago, that's years ago, I used to jog. Now I told you, I exercised years ago because I wanted to look good. Now I'm just trying to stave off death as long as I can. I was jogging on this little country road near our house.
It was in the morning, but it's when the sun's starting to come up. As I'm jogging, stretched across the road is a black snake. I'm terrified of snakes. I stopped and my heart went to my... I was paralyzed because there was a big old snake right there in the road. Incidentally, he was dead.
He couldn't do anything to it, but he was dead. I'm standing there looking at that huge snake and I'm like, man. All of a sudden, I hear, and I look.
Out of a little mobile home, a big German shepherd had come out and he was big. You know how the hair on the back of the neck will start standing up and they're mad and he's baring his teeth? That's how he is as he's coming to me. You know what happened to me? I forgot about that snake right there and now I got bigger problems to deal with. Listen to me. A greater fear had taken the place of a lesser fear. If you and I are going to be bold and confident in this generation, a greater fear, the fear of God, has got to take the place of a lesser fear, the fear of people. That's where boldness and confidence comes in. Listen to me. We need to be more afraid of offending God than we are of offending the government. You need to fear your father more than you fear your Facebook friends.
The church in America has watered down the gospel in an attempt not to offend seekers and as a result, we have ended up offending God. I want to be one of these men who says, I don't care what people think. I want to get to this point. I don't care what people think about me.
I just want to honor God and that's Daniel. Be courteous. Be consistent but be confident.
Now listen. This doesn't always happen but when we start living bold, uncompromising lives in this generation, I want to say it again. They're not always going to like you but they might respect you. They're not always going to agree with you but there's going to be a little bit of honor to you. I'm just telling you, in our attempt to be everybody's friend and go along to get along, now look at me.
They not only don't agree with us, they don't even like us or respect us anymore. We've got to be bold and strong. A great example of that I heard years ago, Peter Cartwright was one of these frontier evangelists. Have you ever read about them like in Kentucky and Tennessee back in the old days, early 1800s, they would go into these really rough, rough, rough areas and preach the gospel.
I love Peter Cartwright. He was one of these evangelists. He'd go to these mountain towns in the 1800s, it was like the wild, wild west and he'd be preaching. While he's preaching, somebody'd start mouthing off or a drunk would come in and interrupt a sermon and Cartwright would say, time out everybody, give me just a second. He'd take the drunk out, beat him up, tell him not to come back in, go back in the pulpit and keep preaching.
That's the kind of man that was. He goes to a little church in the mountains of Tennessee one night and right before he goes out to preach, the deacons come up to him. They're all excited. He said, why are you all so excited? He said, you'll never believe who's here tonight.
He said, who? He said, General Andrew Jackson is here tonight. This is before Jackson became president, but at this time he's the most popular man in America and everybody knows he's going to be president one day. The deacon said, look, Andrew Jackson is here. We know sometimes, Mr. Cartwright, you get carried away in your preaching so you may just want to tone it down a little tonight. Peter Cartwright gets in the pulpit, greets the church and here's how he starts his sermon. He says, I have been told that General Andrew Jackson is here tonight. I've also been told by the deacons that I may want to tone my message down. Let me just say that if Andrew Jackson doesn't repent and get right with God, he's going to bust hell wide open when he dies just like everybody else.
After his sermon, Andrew Jackson came up to him and said, sir, with a regiment like you, I could defeat the whole world. They'll respect you if they don't agree with you. There'll be a little bit of honor if you're bold and strong and confident. And in this Babylonian pagan generation, God is looking for some Hananias, some Mishaels, some Azarias, some Daniels, some strong, bold, confident men and women of God who say we're not going to play the game. We don't play the silly little game. We belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. Let the chips fall where they may. We know who we are and whose we are and that's all we need to know.
Beloved, can you stand to me right now? I know sometimes, particularly in election years, it may seem like everything's falling apart. It's not. Things are chaotic.
It's not. God's still on the throne. He still has a plan. Jesus is still coming back. He's one day going to set up his kingdom. He's going to rule this world.
Everything is going according to plan. Y'all believe that? Now look, you're going to have to build your life on something. You can build your life on the whims of society. They change every day.
Have you noticed that? You can build your life on the approval of your friends and family. It changes every day. You can build your life on the government.
Every four years, the government may change. Why don't you build on something that never changes, never moves, never shaken and that's the rock of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's our foundation. Lift your hands and let's sing this to the Lord Jesus Christ right now. I've still got joy in chaos.
I've got peace that makes no sense. I won't be going under. I'm not held by my own strength. I build my life on Jesus. He's never let me down. He's faithful in every season.
So I would be healed out of Him if He were not. He won't fail. He won't fail. He won't fail. He won't fail.
He's the rock on which I stand With everything around me shaking I've never been more than that But I put my faith in Jesus Cause he's never let me down He's faithful through generations So why would he fail now anymore? I've served him many, many years and I can validate what they just said He'll never let you down Will you go through tough times? Yes Will you have heartaches?
Yes Will you always be the most popular person in the room? No But when your life is built on Jesus Christ, none of that really seems to matter anymore Cause you got Jesus Hey, I told the group before we came out today Heard a testimony of somebody who had been in Islam Gave their life to Jesus Christ and made all their Islamic friends so angry And they said to this person, what did you find in Christianity that we couldn't give you in Islam? They said, Jesus, that's all we need is Jesus That's all I want is Jesus And when you have Jesus, you can be bold, strong, and confident I want to say to you, Chazak Dayematz Which means cross assembly Be bold, be strong Do not be afraid and do not be terrified of anything Why? Because God's going to be with you everywhere you go In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit we pray Amen and Amen, God bless you, beloved
